The Catalysts
by Midwich Cuckoo
Summary: TCP. The environment and psychological state of a mutant at the time of manifestation of their powers, influence the kind of power which will be developed. A series of vignettes.
1. Sunneva Jakobsdottir

**Standard disclaimer: all I own out of the X-Men universe, which is the intellectual property of Marvel, is the characters created by me. The TCP concept (Tales of Common People – non superhero mutants living in the MU) I used in here belongs in turn to Phil Foster and currently deceased Kielle. Winterwarrior was a beta for the series. The series is a twin one to my "They Never Discovered Their Powers" one. It deals with the life stories of the owners of the X-Gene who, unlike the characters of the previous one, did discover their powers but the circumstances of the manifestation of their powers were specific – invariably having something to do either with the personality of the mutant or with the circumstances in which the power was manifested. Similar to the former series, the idea for the catalysts of mutations, that dawned on me, started from the thread of mine on the Marvel board, in which me and the other posters pondered the factors which could contribute to the manifestation of one's powers, as in many a case, the Marvel mutants' kind of powers depended on their mental state or the life threatening situation they found themselves in, at the moment of their discovering their powers. The ideas for the stories come from that thread.**

If Sunneva Jakobsdottir was ever taken to a psychologist, they would give the teen the label of a psychopath. But even if they ever managed to get her to open up the darkest nooks of her heart before them, she would never be taken to one in the first place. Her parents were way too poor to care about taking their numerous progeny to doctors they didn't need, and too simple minded to ever discover that there was indeed something wrong with their daughter – she mastered the art of masking very well. She had practiced it since childhood, since she was old enough to realize her difference to other kids. And that it was something that should be hidden.

As a child, she didn't realize what it was that made her different – until she reached some age, even the very fact of this difference was something she was only subconsciously aware of – but when she was eight or nine, she caught this word from movies she watched and found it to be fitting. A psychopath. Yes, that's what she was. It was this which made her insusceptible to the world of emotions all but her seemed to experience. Like when her family's dog died of old age when the girl was spending a week in Reykjavik with her uncle. Her siblings cried out oceans of tears over their dead pet but the only feeling Sunneva felt was intensive disappointment that because of her absence, she couldn't participate in the dog's burial. It would have been interesting. Or when the same uncle died when she was eight. She liked him but didn't feel anything – but for happiness that something interesting happened at last. It was fascinating – everybody was crying so hard. Sunneva always liked observing people experiencing strong emotions; however she didn't share them with them herself. Uncle was unmarried and childless which in practice meant that the whole family could take from his flat anything they needed. The girl took some items that previously belonged to him, that she found useful. These were way more important to her than her relative's life.

She didn't really feel anything but for mild shock, which soon left her, after her own sister's death in a car accident three years later either. Hekla was actually one of her less favorite siblings – very taciturn, interested only in books and not devoting too much time to her – and so much older than she was; they didn't have too much common ground – but she should, at least, have felt something more than relief that there was some more free room in their small house, made thanks to her death. And that maybe she could get her earrings now.

Not that her sister's jewelry was expensive and she had a lot of it; you can't afford expensive things when you live as one of ten – yes, ladies and gentlemen, you have heard well – as much as ten siblings in the small Seltjarnarnes near Reykjavik, where everybody knows you as a person from this large, poor family. Well, your family can't be otherwise than very poor, when all your parents earn has to be divided between you: Hekla, Sandra, Hrefna (with cardiac defect demanding special medication), Hildur and Kamilla (allergic to pollen and asthmatic) and brothers – Kjartan, Ari, Jakob Jr. and little Anton who has celiac disease and needs special food.

Sunneva hated her siblings. There were so many of them! Actually none of them did anything bad to her; their sole fault consisted in their being so numerous. All the kids at school made fun of Sunneva because of this or, to be more precise, because of her ugly, second hand clothes. She couldn't afford to buy something better and it was all her parents' fault! Her stupid, irresponsible parents. All those slobs were good at was reproducing. Couldn't they have just two, or at best, three children, like everyone else? Well, to be honest, the malicious remarks after some time weren't heard by Sunneva anymore; they stopped when her schoolmates found out that the girl, though short and skinny, could be really aggressive. One boy from their class lost his front tooth, another one, who was always calling the girl "pauper" discovered that someone destroyed his school textbooks, on which some unknown hand wrote vulgar words. Yes, the girl knew how to take revenge. At school and at home, where in turn she bullied her younger siblings. Just because there were so many of them. It was a good enough reason for her. Ari's composition torn off from his copybook and flushed down the toilet. Hiding Hrefna's medicines (maybe this ill cripple would die without them, it would be great). Informing Kjartan's best friend that she overheard him say bad stuff on the said friend. Informing little Hildur she wasn't their parents' real child – that she was found by them in a litter – she was just six and very naïve. A cockroach in Sandra's soup.

But the people the girl liked to pester most were her schoolmates. Not only those who tried bullying her, just anonymous students whom the teen liked to accuse before teachers of the most unbelievable things. And they believed her. Young Sunneva was so hurt by fate as it was – from a poor family and stuff, and let's not forget that her sister died – the poor girl must still be heartbroken because of it – everything worked to her advantage. Sunneva wasn't a type of intellectual; she was actually quite ordinary when it comes to intelligence, not an idiot but not a mastermind of evil either, but she was a real genius when we are talking about inventing ways of hurting others.

It was so at least, until she turned 14. Until the day of the brawl that broke out between her and her classmate in the school close. At least this time it was that other girl who provoked her. And it was this girl who regretted this very, very much. In fact, she regretted it for the next several hours, when she was lying in a hospital bed, writhing with horrible pain with seemed to penetrate every cell of her body. The teen felt like dying – she actually wanted to die, so bad the pain was. In spite of the painkillers which the doctors gave her, which didn't help at all. And when she came out of the hospital, she was very grateful to Providence for getting away with it. And the very first thing she did after coming out of hospital was apologized to Sunneva.

The aforementioned only smiled at the look of her repenting enemy. She was in a way too good mood to keep a grudge. The mood which was caused by this sudden awareness which out of a sudden flew down on her in the middle of the brawl, that from now on the days of her inventing new ways of hurting others were over. She would never do it anymore. Never ever. It was the last day of her racking her brains over making up the methods of making life unbearable for people.

Now there was the only one method she was going to use. She understood it in the middle of the brawl when, out of a sudden, she did it for the first time in her life. The newly found ability to make people experience a horrible pain of the whole body was certainly something wonderful.


	2. Glenda Habberton

Before Glenda Habberton became a nosey woman, she was a nosey kid and later a nosy teen. Even as a young child she always wanted to know stuff. Being this kind of girl who was described as a "little old lady", to the time spent with peers she preferred spending time in company of adults. The closest adults she could find to hang out with were the elderly women from her family. Gran, great aunt Mae, Aunt Cynthia. They were old, with Aunt Cynthia who was in her 60's then, being the youngest in this circle – and what is the stereotypical most favorite activity of an elderly lady from a lower class, not being educated nor wealthy enough to be able to deliver to herself some more sophisticated form of entertainment? Gossiping. Yes, Glenda's relatives fit this stereotype. Fit it very well. The three women, together with their female friends spent majority of their spare time discussing the clothes of their friends. Well, "acquaintances" was the word fitting better, as if the aforementioned could ever hear what the members of this gossiping trio said about them, they wouldn't ever classify them as their friends.

Little Glenda pricked up her ears, greedily catching the revelations about the people she knew or about whom she knew only from the stories and about whom her relatives were revealing the world unknown to her – the word in which the crime number one was having an ugly dress, a naughty child or bad breath. Young Glenda became imbued with this atmosphere of her home. As a teen she was probably the most inquisitive girl in school. She didn't spend her free time talking with Gran, her sister and auntie Cynthia anymore; Gran died of an old age and Aunt Cynthia of a cancer; but their place was taken by her schoolmates with whom she could gossip. If Linda from their class, this shy and secretive girl who didn't talk to anyone had those bruises on her face because she fell down the stairs to their cellar as she claimed, or if it was this drunk of a father who beat her. If those three young women who recently rented the neighboring apartment were sisters, close friends or maybe lesbians living in a ménage a trois. Why this Martha Odell, who was two grades their senior, never dated any boys; was there something wrong with her in this respect, too? Why their biology teacher had three husbands – was she a black widow as the malicious whispered behind her back or was it just a fatal coincidence that all of them died so young? Why Mr. O'Neal, who lived in neighborhood, was such a weirdo. There was something strange about him, everybody said.

Linda in fact was just a really clumsy girl. She indeed fell down the stairs the day before she appeared in school with a big, nasty looking bruise covering almost her whole right cheek; she slipped on their poodle which, led by curiosity, followed his young owner into the cellar when she went down in there to bring the apples. Her father would never hit her, she was his favorite child. Though not her own mother's – she kept telling her that she wished she had an abortion; she always wished for a baby boy instead.

The three inhabitants of the neighboring apartment weren't lesbians but just two first cousins and their best friend (though one of them was indeed bisexual, though she was doing her best to hide said proclivities, as it was usually done back then, in the 60's).

Martha wasn't a lesbian either – due to the lack of physical attractiveness, she just felt really insecure and didn't perceive herself as a girl in whom any boy could ever be interested. Anyway, even if she didn't have such low self esteem, she would have problems with trusting a man, since her own father was a convicted rapist. Father was in prison now for this, though Martha, having moved into their town with her mother and sister, falsely claimed while talking to others her father only left their family and lived in Liverpool now. But her grandma indeed used to live in Liverpool back in the days of her youth – she established a reputation of a black sheep of the family, as she was suspected of being an arsonist, though no one managed to prove it.

Mrs. Sawyer wasn't another Lydia Trueblood, nor Lyda Catherine Ambrose's veritable successor. Two of her husbands died in accidents. The third and last one committed suicide by overdosing his own medicines, though his wife claimed later that it was an unfortunate accident too. Everybody believed her –but for those who thought her to be a murderess.

Mr. O'Neal had just really bad experiences as a soldier during the war. It was more than 20 years since it ended but the man was still very irritable and nervous.

Glenda Habberton wasn't irritable or anything like that, she was just happy. Really happy. Happy that finally she came to know of all those things and many other. Who else wouldn't be, having the wish of getting the access to others' secrets come true? Since she was 15, she could find others' secrets out with ease. Telepathy is the best gift for an inquisitive person, don't you think?


	3. Bruno Ferrigno

**Beta: Moviemom44**

Bruno Ferrigno was very shy since childhood. Shy and not liking to be seen. He never liked to be the center of attention and when he happened to be, he blushed all over, like some coy fairytale damsel in distress who had just been saved by her brave knight. His parents weren't particularly worried about this. In fact, they were glad that their son never caused them any problems. His personality was uniquely suited to them. They didn't need a noisy kid and his just as noisy friends disturbing the silence of their house. As if they needed one problem more in their small house in rural Minden, Nebraska where they had moved to last year. The very last thing the Ferrignos needed was a sociable son who would have to explain to his numerous friends why he couldn't give them his family's new address, or tell them why they had to move away from the last rural town they had lived in, this time in Iowa, in a hysterical hurry and relocate to Minden. It was the fifth time during the last eight years that they had to abandon their home and move to a new place. They had to move out every time there was a danger they could be discovered.

For last eight years, the Ferrignos had been in the Witness Protection Program. Both of Bruno's parents were gangsters, real-life members of the Mafia. It was like being a child of Henry Hill, the character from the "Wiseguys" book, except there were two boys in this family. Instead of Judy and Ruth, there were Bruno and his little brother Paolo. And this time, also Mon Ferrigno was in the mob as well. Rare for a woman but she did it. Like one of the heroines of Bella Mafia, signora Carmela Ferrigno stood at her husband's side for many years until the time came when they both had to agree to testify against their coworkers. The authorities promised they would be relocated from New York into some small anonymous town somewhere in one of those rural states, where they could start a new life. It was a difficult decision for Bruno's parents even if such an obvious one. They knew that only by agreeing to this proposition would they manage to avoid prison or worse, the retribution of other mobsters. But the obviousness of this decision didn't make it more pleasant for them. In the city they left behind, they were Somebody with a capital "S" but now, in Minden and the other towns they had lived in, they were the exact opposite of the people whom they used to be – anonymous, hard working nobodies. They hated it with a passion.

Bruno, on the other hand, hated something else – the constant moves. He didn't remember New York much and didn't mind the simple existence in the towns he lived in. However there was one fear he shared with his parents – the one of the bad guys finding them here. This fear was so intensive in him that many a night the boy woke up in the darkness with a heart beating so rapidly, as if it was going to jump out of his chest, sure that he just heard something and that it was the noise made by the Italian mafia hitmen who managed to find them. Sometimes Bruno even happened to wet his bed. His parents punished the boy for this – he was way too old to behave like a toddler but he couldn't help it. The boy never talked about his fears with his parents – they just as afraid as he was, but they refused to admit it. It was why they didn't want to talk with him about anything about the life they led in New York – talking about this only fomented their own fears.

And since this one fateful night Bruno was so afraid of, he couldn't talk with his parents about this any more at all, regardless of how much he would like to. Actually, since that very night, he couldn't talk with them about anything, to be more precise.

It was one of those nights. Bruno woke up from one of his nightmares about the Mafia hitmen, panting and sweating. He looked around, realizing with an intensive feeling of huge relief that it was just a dream. A dream? There were some noises downstairs. Indeed, there could be no mistake. The boy could hear them very clearly, though he was still trying to convince himself it was just the creaking of the wooden stairs. Until the moment when he heard the shots coming from the bedroom of his parents and brother. Paolo slept with them that night, not feeling very well then. Yes, this time he wasn't mistaken. The bad guys managed to find them. Bruno, paralyzed with fear and shock, jumped out of his bed, trying to make as little noise as possible. They killed his parents and now he was going to be shot. Farewell, Bruno Ferrigno's young life – you haven't lasted even fourteen years. The boy was about to turn fourteen in two weeks but it seemed it wasn't going to happen now. The teen had no time to ponder it though for the door opened. As the assassin entered Bruno's room he turned on the light. He looked around still holding his gun. Bruno closed his eyes, praying for a fast and painless death. For a moment he thought about himself as someone who was already dead – physically still alive but in fact not belonging to the world of the living any more other than just formally. He was already dead and nothing was going to save him, he knew it. But… something was wrong. Right – perfectly right for Bruno in his ordeal – but wrong. The man didn't even speak a word, let alone kill him. Instead – the teen could see it clearly when he opened his clenched eyelids – he turned his back on him and just… left the room. A moment later, he heard the noise of conversation between the hitmen.

"There was no one in that room" – said one man, clearly referring to Bruno's room. Sweating, with a rapidly beating heart, the boy couldn't believe what just happened. He didn't know why his life was spared. Or why that man pretended to his companion that Bruno was absent when he entered his room. With an all embracing feeling of huge relief – he didn't know such a relief could even exist although the murderers were still in their house – the boy raised his hand to wipe the sweat from his forehead. Only something was wrong with his hand and arm. Shocked, the boy looked at his own body to check if it was like his hand had been. Yes, there was no mistake about this. Now he knew why his life was spared. And what he was in terms of his genetic status. The man who came to kill them all wasn't merciful – he just couldn't see his last victim. As Bruno looked at himself, he saw… well, nothing. Those who said that mutant powers manifested themselves at the moments of heightened emotional stress were apparently right. Bruno could fully agree with them now, having just discovered his invisibility.


End file.
